A few days ago my wife and I hosted an old friend of mine from the Abbey of the Genesee. My friend has been employed at the abbey since the 1970s; “steady as she goes” would be the operative phrase to describe him. And he brought with him his 20 year old son, a cause for real joy in his life, because he had not had contact with his son for over nine years. One late afternoon about a month ago my friend heard a knock on his door, and there, when he opened the door, was his son: “Hi dad, it’s me. Can I come in?”
Still, it hasn’t been an entirely smooth ride, and some of the residual emotions surfaced during their visit with us. We had many discussions, which it was an honor to be involved in. I guess that’s what friendship is about, the ability to share the most important things in life when they are happening, assured you will be listened to and taken seriously. Our talks seemed to have a positive effect, as the two of them left our home for their camping trip to Maine very happy to be together.
A monks family is his community, and the greatest challenges he will face in his life usually surface there, with his brothers. Conflict is a given in life in or out of a monastery. Those that enter a monastery thinking that they have arrived will very soon find out otherwise. As Thomas Merton once perceptively observed:
Perfection is not something you can acquire like a hat - by walking into a place and trying on several and walking out ten minutes later with one on your head that fits. Yet people sometimes enter monasteries with that idea. New Seeds of Contemplation. New Directions, 1961. p. 101
Things take time, the spiritual life (which Merton often reminds us is simply real life) being no exception. And, as in family life, it is the community the monk lives with that most truly (and effectively!) provides the soil from which the monk’s spiritual growth will flourish. If he knows nothing of humility when he enters the monastery he will be an expert when, one day in the future, he is carried out to rest with his departed brothers. We learn to love with and through others, and the monk is no different.